Thing A Day Challenge: Day Whatever

Well, at the risk of not looking committed, I wasn't to commited to the challenge. Why? Well, I practially DO make something everyday regardless for challenges! Yesterday I painted the kitchen and put it back together as the remodel was finally done.The evening I was beat, so didn't hit the bench. Today I'm heading out, but first what I did during the daylight hours.

Muleskinning. No, that does't mean removing the flesh from a mule, it means driving a team. I personally did not get much muleskinning done (I made a few furrows), but watched the other drivers as they worked the competition.

Now I shadowed the mulers. They love their animals and can extol the virtues of mules all day, but there where plenty of horses, too. Smaller draft breeds, mustangs, belgians, clydesdales....all of them have their virtues and drawbacks. The big drafts are very calm and even tempered and have no problem pulling weight, but they are so big they will overheat and take lots of feed. Mules and smaller horses/ponies dont pull as much weight as the big drafts, but dont take as much to feed and dont get over heated as fast. Horses will overwork themselves and die, or get over heated and drink themselves sick. Mules will stop when they get overworked and wont drink until their temp comes down and its safe to drink. When a horse is done for the day, you may still be able to get it to work...but with a mule if it decides it doesnt want to work anymore---you're just going to have to try again tommorrow!

A team a mules.

I dont remeber the breed of these drafts-clydesdales? This fellow won an award in the novice division.

A young lady driving keiger mustangs

Mules reaching the end of the line.

The driver has to throw the plow on the side as he turns the team.

Circling around with a team of horses.

A pair of beauties.

This team had only plowed four times before the competition, but the driver has done a good job teaching these two how to pull.

Heres an interesting thing about mules: apperently in the civil war mules had bells cut on their tails to symbolize where they should go on a driving team. Supposedly the mules that where even tempered and made good leaders had three bells, two for the middle, ect. a mule with no hair on the tail was likely ta kick ya! Not only could soldiers figure it out easily, if they had to hook up the mules in the dark, they could just feel the tail and know where they belonged! Today they symbolize packing, pulling, and riding. Karola on the right has been ridden once, so she has yet to earn her third bell. Breezy (who is a grand old 26 and still pulling!) can do it all.

It really is amazing how easy plowing with a team is-at leas in land without rocks and tree roots to cut through! I brought a friend and he was startled by the ease. As you can see, though, people of all ages, shapes and sizes where able to compete. If you want to see it in action there are farming festivals in the spring and summer. In Oregon, the next chance to see it in action is at Founders Day Draft Horse Plowing Competition at Champoeg State Park May 7th and 8th.  I'll be there! Hope you are too.

Thing a day: Day 5

I started this ring a few days ago. I tried following the instructions for this ring, but my bar of silver was a bit short sos i had to change it up a little. I also textured the shank. I finally sat down and finished it. Sadly, the stone is not st very well (first or second time i've done a stone like this), so I believe I will someday redo the setting completely. However, for now it looks good and counts!

Thing a Day: Day 4

I got my gas! When I moved my tank the regulator was wobbly. Not sure why, but I'm sure that caused a tiny leak when i had the gas on. Dangerous...morak for all of use: check your tanks regularly for leaks. How? Brush on soapy water around all the joints and if you see bubbles, you have a leak.

So I recently bought stones from etsy's dmargocr (whom, btw, said once before they will give a discount to first time buyers who mention this blog_they are very nice, check their stuff out!). This particular pair of tigers eye sat in my etsy favorites for a couple weeks, each time i checked to make sure no one bought them. glad no one did (suprised, too!), because they became my day four finished piece:

Everything is prettier in person. The citrine at the bottom are very bright. Corners on bezels are very hard, but these came out nice. Very happy, took me up til midnight to complete, but there you go: done. now for some sleep!

zzz...

Thing A Day Challenge

I'm in a group on etsy and every mont h we have a challege. This month is to make a piece every day for a month. I am going to give it a shot. My goal is everyday for two weeks, hopeing by then to see if i can continue to a month.  I am including stones as finished objects, too. I just got a new job, so things are changing for me. Less evening time to work, but more money for better stuff. better stuff=more time. We will se what happens. So three days in aaaand:

Day 1:
This challenge wil be a great chance for me to *finish* a bunch of pieces on indefinate hold. This ring was one of such pieces. Turned out pretty nice.

 Day 2:
Between getting ready for the kitchen remodel, childcare, and a new job I didn't even get to look at my bench!

Day 3 :

Alright! I got to look at my bench! However, I was very interupted by workmen in my studio/garage. I started on a ring, following instructions from the internets (a special diamond solitare). Then my gas tank ran out..oh and i think something else happend. I dont remeber-but I won't give up!!! No gas? Fine, I'll just go with stones. The other day I bought a pile of tools from someone and he gave me this (I think i showed him a few too many of my crummy stones i polished up on my dremmel. "stop ruining nice stones!"):

Its a *very* old lapidairy polisher. each little wheel goes up in grit. It needed a little tweaking, but i got it running. I've been working on the first opal for a while, kept taking it to Handleys, and Mr.Handley keeps saying, "nope, more curve to the edges!" arrrrg. taking so much material off! Then I showed hima few other pieces i did...*sigh* told me to take of biiig chunks of stone. What I ended up with is much smaller than what I had this morning. Two of the three opals:

The second opal has a groovy stripe of potch. it was twice as big before, but it has a nasty little crack that kept growing so i had to cut it down.

The third opal I took pictures of, but deleted. Anyway, day three I got stones done. Tommorrow I get gas, and finish what I started!

How to: Patina Silver at Home

I do not have liver of sulfer, the most common silver tarnishing compound. So when I read the other day that one can use over-boiled eggs to give a patina to silver, I had to try. First things first: you have to boil and egg until it starts to turn green inside. So, maybe 20-25 minutes rather than 15. All you need is the yolk, so give the whites to your niece who loves hard boiled eggs. Squish up the yolk and put it in a container with the silver and close it up.

After half an hour it was starting to tarnish a little. I dont thin i boiled my enough...plus the organic free range eggs arn't as sulfry as corprate eggs imho...

An hour later its changing color

The next morning its dark. I polished up what i wanted and the piece had nice details. If you ever find yourself in need of a silver patina but without your liver of sulfer this is a great, cheap eco-friendly way to do it.

I ended up having to solder the piece again and toss it in the pickle, which removed the patina. Oh well.

The finished piece. Again I used Ethiopian opal that I cut by hand and a paridot cab. A fun paisley ring.

Cacoxenite in Amethyst Pin-The Making Of

Last week I bought some new stones. Right away I wanted to create the setting for my cacoxenite amethyst. First, though, I had a crooked cut trilliant/pear shaped amethyst i had to make a basket setting for. Well, honestly I have never created a full basket setting.  Sure, my raw opal pendant is a basket, but it doesnt have two galleries...only one. Plus, being raw opal I didnt feel the need to make the baskets perfect---because the stones weren't! Alright, so this creating this basket I knew was going to be a challenge. First I created the upper and lower galleries (aka, the triangley shapes) Then, since i used thinner gauge wire for the gallery i notched the thicker wires for the prongs where i wanted to solder the gallery.

Most jewelers using binding wire or stab the wire into a charcol block because tweezers act as heat sinks...but i suck at using binding wire, so I'm using tweezers to hold my wires in place. I started with hard on all these joints.

Again I notched the wire where the second gallery is to lay. 3 of the 4 joints in the first solder where touching, so i soldered those three still using hard. The 4th joint i adjusted a little to make contact and moved to medium solder to keep my other joints from opening.

In the mean time, I was building the main piece. My little beads for the bezel.

Look! It fits!

The bezel is ready, too...now i have to create a bail and attatch them

Once I got the bail on I finally cut the excess wire off the back end.

Sadly, The bail was a little long and looked funny, so I added some tubing for an accent stone.

It don't loook funny no more! All soldered together.

Now to polish...There were lots of hard to reash stops that my polishing wheels couldnt reach, so I had to polish using thread with tripoli on it.

All polished up.

Almost done, but that darn accent amethyst on top keeps falling off my bench and disappearing! My niece managed to find it the first time.

All set and all finished.

Very classical in design with a modern stone. I decided to go with a style that wont be passe in ten years. This one is going into the CMAG Spring Jewelry show.

Naw Ruz or Persian New Year

I was brought up in the Baha'i faith, and for the last 15 days I have fasted sunup to sundown (typically Baha'i fast for 19, but I had the flu, so I was exempt). In the Baha'i calendar there are 19 months with 19 days each, before the final month the 4 extra days are spent in celebration. This last 19 day month Baha'is in good health above the age of 15 are supposed to fast during the day. So I got up early and made a big breakfasst with my mom, drank lots of water and then when the suncame up I got nothin' 'til the sun went down again. Yes, that meant two weeks without coffee. Two weeks of eating and wanting to go straight to bed. Two weeks of few blog posts. Two weeks of trying to distract myself the last three hours of the day. Two weeks of movies.  Two weeks of....very little productivity.

During the fast Sunset is a very special time.

Which is fine as the time of fasting is meant to be a time when one slows down, meditates and prays. For me, it is a time to improve my will power, learn to appriceate the bountius food we Americans are surrounded by and recalibrate between my bodies needs and wants. You see, often we confuse a snackish feeling with real hunger. Fasting you learn that that snackish feeling will often fade proving to be mearly a want and not a need.

Anyway, all this goes to say: the fast is over! It is Naw Ruz-the New Year! It is offically spring! Yippee!!! Iranians also celebrate Naw Ruz. Why not? Its the first day of spring! And how do I celebrate?  My little tradition is making doughnuts for breakfast. For realz, yo.

Yes, sour cream doughnuts from the Joy of Cooking. Rolled out and ready to go!

Fry, little doughnuts, FRY!

A little powdered sugar...

All done, all yum.  As of tonight there is only one left.

Oh yeah, and coffee.

My mother likes to celebrate by giving gifts. She gave me two new (much needed) purses. She bought sparkley beads at the "gem faire" and made a necklace to give to my 94 year old Grandma (My Grandma verymuch likes sparkles---i fear soon she will outsparkle the stars and make the jealous!) The next Baha'i celebration is the 12 day festival of Ridvan. My family we make a little Persian style tea garden and have tea and cookies. As a kid I used to sleep in the "tent" we set up.

Anyone else have a family/religious tradition related to spring? Have you ever started a family tradition? What is your favorite celebration? Thanks for letting me share with ya'll